My Friends are all Dead and I Hate this Club
by Golden Penne
Summary: Surviving in monster gulch isn't easy.
1. Chapter 1

"So, you want to survive in Monster Gulch. That's cute. I'll give you a few tips on the house.

Number one: never interact with anyone. It doesn't matter how much hair or skin they have. Everyone is a monster and everyone who wants to survive will go to any length possible to do it.

Number two: If you manage to break the first rule and find a kind, trustworthy companion to team up with, don't become attached. Everyone who doesn't intend on stabbing your back will eventually die a slow, horrible death while you watch powerlessly."

"Geez Mark, chillax." said a nasally voice belonging to the pale vampire sitting on the couch behind him. Mark let out a dry chuckle as he realized he was blankly staring at a television in front of him while he was sitting on a dusty ottoman. Of course, the TV was not plugged in. It didn't work. Enis simply kept it there for the look.

"Heh, sorry Enis." Enis knew Mark was a thing called a...ituber? Before the short war and eventual 'apocalypse' Mark would make videos where he would talk to a camera in his pajamas. Some days Enis would find Mark staring into space and giving advice or commentary to literally nothing. It was weird, but it was one of the few things that seemed to make Mark happy, and considering how damaged he had become under the circumstances, Enis saw no reason to disallow it.

"Hey you should probably get to sleep soon," Enis said as he took a bite of cold popcorn. "It's getting late and I have a feeling you're going to be waking up ungodly early." Mark rolled his eyes at the comment. Even before the apocalypse, he enjoyed getting an early start to the day, much to the annoyance of his twitter followers.

Mark walked over to the hallway, which contained a switch that controlled all the power outlets in the house. Electricity was a rarity nowadays, and Mark was thankful he was able to become friends with a "Devilishly Handsome Sparkly Vampire" like Enis. As annoying as he was, Mark definitely would have died multiple times from infections if it wasn't for Enis' strange but surprisingly effective magic spells and rituals.

He flipped off the switch. The whole house went dark as Mark's other senses immediately heightened. He felt around the bumpy wall until he found a corner to sit down in.

He held very tightly onto his overstuffed backpack like a pillow as he got into a comfortable sleeping position.

"G'night!" he yelled to Enis a few rooms away.

"Night, Mark!" Enis yelled back.

The howling of werewolves in the distance drifted Mark into a fitful sleep.

Jack settled down in an abandoned building which appeared to be an old bakery based on all the empty display shelves. He hid out of sight of the front window by ducking behind the counter. It wasn't the best possible hide out but the last place you wanted to be at night was outside.

He took what few possessions he had out of his old laptop bag and tried to remain calm. He was still catching his breath after outrunning a pack of bipedal werewolf creatures. Be cringed at the large cut running down his right forearm that he had received from one of the beasts. He tried, with little success, to slow the bleeding by applying pressure with his left arm.

"Holy fucking shit" Jack whispered as he felt the tears swelling in his eyes, holding in a scream. It seemed like the gash running down his arm was getting more painful each second. He didn't have any sort of first aid supplies with him. He ripped off part of his sleeve to wrap around his arm as a makeshift band-aid and prayed that it wasn't infected. If he had to lose the arm he wouldn't last very long at all.

After gaining a bit more control of his breathing Jack lay down on the floor and clung onto his green blanket with all his strength. He clenched his teeth together as tears ran down his face, but he somehow found a way to make it to sleep


	2. Chapter 2

Jack awoke in the earliest hours of the morning to an intense throbbing in his right arm. He rolled a portion of his thin green blanket into a ball and bit it at full force as he unwrapped the cloth he had tied around the cut and prepared his eyes for what he might see.

He almost vomited at the sight of his arm looking almost green with infection. The tissue was burning hot and look like a balloon ready to pop. The pain...oh god the pain was like nothing Jack had ever felt before.

As he tried to stand up, he suddenly felt an intense cold chill spread throughout his body. He felt extremely light headed from the sudden movement, as was suddenly reminded of the fact that he had not been able to find anything to eat or drink for two days. He felt somewhat nauseous as the chill lingered most extremely in his arms and legs.

He immediately sat back down as his breathing sped up at an alarming pace. He could also feel his heart pounding out of his chest. Despite the chills, he felt sweaty and stuffy, like he was running a fever.

He needed help if he was going to survive. He occasionally saw people run into the woods behind the area he was in. He gathered his things and walked out of the shop he was in the second he saw the sky turn from pitch black to a dark blue. He ran to the woods as fast as his admittedly short legs could carry him until he saw a clear entrance and path leading into the forest.

At first skeptical, it didn't take long for Jack to realise that he had no other options. He was going to die either way, he might as well take his chances. He grabbed his arm as he started to feel the pain spread into his back and stomach and continued to run into the woods.

He pitifully jogged along for about 2 hours on the never ending path before he started to feel so dizzy he could barely stand. As his world spun, he sat on the dirty ground for a moment and tried to get his thoughts together before he spotted what looked like a short stone wall in his peripheral. He desperately crawled on the ground and followed the wall for about 5 minutes that felt more like 4 hours. Eventually he reached an open, grand gate.

After struggling with the last of his strength past some strange statues to the locked, wooden door, he attempted to knock with great force, but it only ended up being a series of quiet taps with Jack's elbow.

"H-help…" Jack coughed out.

Jack faintly heard the sounds of someone walking down the stairs before he felt his head smash into the smooth, stone walkway and his world went black.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack awoke on a dusty couch in a dimly lit room.

He squinted his eyes as he waited for the room to come into focus. The pain in his arm was still there but had died down quite a bit.

As his vision cleared, Jack felt his head pounding as he let out a weak cough.

"Ooo! Mark, he's awake!" said a very nasally voice on his left side.  
Jack tried a force out a word, but all that came out was a barely audible wheeze.

"Shhh, don't try to talk. You need to keep resting if you're going to heal." said the voice. "Your temperature and heart rate are back to normal. Infection is down. You should be ready to go by tomorrow. Oooh, and take this." The blurry figure handed him a glass of water and an oddly colored pill.

Jack contemplated if he should pretend he didn't speak English. He remembered that he had done that before and it only ended up getting him into more trouble.

"Wh-what?" Jack asked, understandably hesitant and confused.

"Just take it! I'm a devilishly handsome sparkling vampire so basically a trained professional in human anatomy and medicine. That's just a sugar pill, but I enchanted it with my magic!"

Jack's heart skipped a beat. Shit. He walked right into the house of a real vampire. The vampire looked surprisingly less threatening than what he had heard. He was wearing suspenders and seemed to be fully invested in every word he said. He seemed far too enthusiastic to be in the middle of the apocalypse. Then again, his species was the one thriving off of everything. Jack reached for his knife in his bag, but the familiar weight on his left shoulder was nowhere to be found

The overly happy vampire clearly noticed his concern and met it with a friendly chuckle.

"Don't worry, I'm a vegan! I don't eat anything with a face! I generally tear the face off first."

This only made Jack more anxious. The vampire softened his voice, knelt down, and put a hand on Jack's shoulder.

"Listen. I know things seem pretty bad right now but you have to trust me. It's safe here. You're going to get better and you'll be back on your adventures in no time. You had a pretty bad septic infection but its pretty much gone now. I just need you to work with me here and take the magical pill."

Jack nervously gulped down the pill.

"Okay, good. Now try to lay still and breathe."

Jack tried to lay still and stared at the aged ceiling. He felt a refreshing warmness start in his toes and slowly work its way up his legs and eventually to the formerly green mess of hair on his head. His headache, along with some untreated and forgotten cuts bruises on his body seemed to disappear.

Jack smiled, impressed. He had never been healed with real magic, only hurt with it. As the warm feeling moved through his face he instinctively scrunched up his nose, receiving a chuckle from the friendly vampire.

After that, he sat up on the couch. The vampire held out his hand.

"My name's Enis by the way."

"Um...Jack. Thanks."

"Oh, and that's Mark." Enis said and pointed to a muscular man with salmon colored hair, about Jack's age sitting in the window. Jack wasn't sure if Mark was Asian or not, but thought it would be rude to ask. Despite being human, Mark looked far deadlier than Enis. He had a large knife and a shotgun on his belt and was wearing clean, but very tattered clothes. Large scars, old and new, decorated every inch of skin that was revealed.

Mark looked back and glared at the two of them. Jack nervously smiled back. Mark quickly turned his head back around and continued to stare out the window at the pouring rain.

"He's not much of a talker." Enis chirped. "Oh, Jack, do you want some dinner! You look like you're going to blow away!"

"Yes! I mean...uh...yeah...definitely." Jack said, trying not to look too vulnerable. It felt nice to hear someone else say his name for the first time in almost a year.


	4. Chapter 4

Enis sat at the head of the table. Jack was sitting across from Mark. In front of them was a perfectly set table with beautiful sets of plates and silverware. Jack sneezed a few times from the amount of dust on the tablecloth. In contrast to the formal tableset was a very large bowl of baked beans with a soup ladle in it, alongside some parmesan cheese.

Jack inhaled about three plates of beans before you could say "linguine." Feeling a little sick from the sudden amount of food after not eating for over a week, he stopped himself.

"So Mark…" Jack said. Mark looked up and made eye contact with him. "How was your day?" Jack asked awkwardly.

"How do you think?" Mark said, scowling back at him. Jack tried to melt in his chair. Mark had a very deep, hoarse voice, but spoke in a threateningly serious tone.

Jack looked down at his plate as the trio spent the rest of the meal in silence.

Jack sat on the couch and Mark returned to the window after dinner. Enis washed dishes in the kitchen. Jack had offered to help but Enis refused.

"Um...how do you turn the TV on?" Jack called into the kitchen.

"It doesn't work. It's just there for the look! Use your imagination!" Enis called back.

Jack leaned back on the couch. He noticed his bag leaning against the coffee table. He grabbed it and quickly checked to make sure none of his things were missing. To his surprise, everything looked to be exactly how he left it.

He decided to put his free time to use. He grabbed a twisted knife sharpener and sawed his blade back and forth on it like he was playing a violin. He felt Mark's powerful gaze on the back of his neck.  
"What?" Jack asked, a little annoyed.

Mark shrugged and looked back out the window. The rain had turned into a full-on thunderstorm, a rare sight in California.

After two more booms of thunder, all the lights in the house suddenly turned off. Jack jumped and almost dropped the large knife in his hand directly onto his foot.

"Don't worry, the power's just out. It should be back up by tomorrow." Enis reassured from the kitchen. Jack felt around in the pitch black for his bag and carefully swapped out the knife for a flashlight. As soon as he switched on the light he heard a grumble from Mark.

"I wouldn't waste your batteries on this." he said, not taking his eyes off of the glass window. Jack turned off the light and placed his flashlight on the table.

Jack went back on the couch and looked down at his thumbs. Of course, he couldn't see them but he could feel them twiddling with each other. He was thankful that he still had both of his arms attached and working.

Jack panicked a little bit. He had always been terrified of the dark, even before everything went to hell. He decided that maybe he could pass the time by trying to talk to Mark.

Jack attempted to stumble over to the window, only to bang his shin on the table.

"Fuck!" Jack involuntarily yelped out.

For the first time since he had met him, Mark laughed. It was more of a long snort than a laugh, but Jack could feel the smile from across the room, even if he couldn't see it.

Jack moved over to the window next to Mark. As he attempted to sit in the large windowsill, Mark gently pushed him away.

"Too close." he said in his typical tone of voice.

Instead, Jack sat on the floor and leaned against the wall. Occasional flashes of lightning illuminated the room for split seconds. He took out his green blanket and wrapped it around himself.

"So...Mark," Jack started.

"Yeah?"

"How did you end up here?"

"Who asked?"

"Me…"

Mark shifted his position a bit so he was facing even further away from Jack. After a few seconds of silence interrupted only by flashes of lightning followed by loud thunder.

"So what are you, like Scottish or something?" Mark asked. Enis hadn't commented on his very obvious Irish accent, but both Enis and Mark had clearly noticed it. He tried to hide it as best he could. Being a human with pierced ears and green hair, the last thing Jack needed was to stand out even more. He normally did this by speaking very slowly and quietly, or better yet, not at all.

"Um...no," Jack said, staring down at the floor.

Some more silence made the dark room feel much larger than it actually was. Mark would trace the path of the raindrops with his finger.

"So...are you Chinese?"

The long silence indicated that Mark was either offended or annoyed.

"Sorry." Jack quickly said.

"What?" Mark asked, sitting up.

"Sorry that I asked that," Jack said, a little less confidently than normal, which isn't saying much.

More silence.

...

"Irish...I'm Irish." Jack said, curling into a ball in the blanket, thankful that he wasn't stuck outside that night.

Mark responded with a stretch and a yawn.

"Well, goodnight leprechaun."

"Night Mark."

Mark and Jack drifted to sleep as Enis cleaned the kitchen until dawn.


	5. Chapter 5

By the time Jack had woken up the next morning, he was completely healed and felt better than he had in a very long time. All that was left of the cut was a scar that loosely resembled the bold hunter's mark from bloodborne. Needless to say, now that the pain was gone Jack was able to appreciate the badass design. Years ago, he had actually contemplated getting a tattoo in that spot but was never able to find the time.

The rain had stopped completely and washed away most of the heat. Winter was on the way in full force and a thick layer of fog outside the house and a cold draft from where he was sitting on the floor emphasized that fact. Jack didn't want to overstay his welcome with Mark and Enis, but he also didn't want to have to navigate through the foggy woods, especially after the rain had turned the dirt into mud.

Mark was drinking a water out of a coffee mug in the kitchen. Enis was asleep on the couch.

"Was he up all night?" Jack whispered to Mark.

"He's a vampire. Vampires are nocturnal, I thought you would know that." Mark said with an eye roll.

"Yeah, but-"

"But what?"

"I-I don't know."

Jack started down at the floor. A few birds chirped outside the window.

"You were sharpening your knife incorrectly last night." Mark said without making eye contact with Jack.

Jack continued to look down on the floor in silence.

"Uuuugh! Fine if you insist!" Mark groaned out. "Let me show you."

Jack held back a chuckle and looked up at Mark in surprise.

"Go get your shit."

Jack brought his bag into the living room. By the time he was back, Mark had placed two coffee mugs, his own much larger knife, and a sheet of paper on the table.

"Okay, now show me how you normally sharpen your knife."

Jack hastily took out his sharpener and knife. Mark picked up the sharpener and examined it at eye level.

"What the fuck is this?"

"Uh…."

"Just show me how you normally do it."

Mark angrily threw the sharpener back at Jack. He repeated his actions from the last night. Mark cringed as he watched.

"Okay, okay stop, let me see that."

Jack handed Mark the sharpener. Mark unceremoniously snapped it in half. He then handed Jack one of the mugs.

"Flip it upside down."

"What?" Jack asked, very confused by the whole situation.

"Did I stutter?"

"Sorry, sorry." Jack stammered out, afraid the next thing to be snapped in half would be his neck. He flipped the coffee mug upside down so that the non-ceramic bottom was facing upwards.

"Okay take the paper."

"But you just told me to…"

"I just told you to take. The. Paper." Mark said in an almost snarly tone of voice.

Jack grabbed the sheet of paper. It was blank with lines and looked like it was torn out of a notebook.

"Cut through the paper."

Jack fumbled around a bit until he awkwardly twisted his hand behind the paper, poked a hole through it, and slowly ripped a jagged line down the paper. He soon felt the paper being ripped out of his hands by Mark.

Mark took his own knife off the table and in a split second, he had slashed a clean line down the middle of the paper. Jack watched in fascination.

"Okay, lesson one: always cut AWAY from yourself."

Jack kicked himself for being so dumb.

"Trust me, the last thing you need to do is die from a careless mistake."

"Wh-why are you helping me?" Jack asked, a bit alarmed by Mark's sudden attention.

"Because...Jack…" Mark looked away and thought for a second about his answer. "You seem like a good person. You wanted to talk to me, you trusted Enis, hell, most people would have killed both of us or at least robbed us last night. Enis wanted to let you stay because he's a good person, and you are too."

One thing that Jack noticed about Mark was that rather than talking with his hands, he showed most of his body language through his shoulders and head movement. It was strange but gave everything he said a lot more weight.

"People like you are going extinct," he continued, "I'll be the first to say that I'm not a good person, but you remind me of an old friend of mine. People like you need to know how to protect yourselves."

"Mark...I'm sure you're a good person. Everyone has a little good in them, you just have to want to let it show. I'm sure of it."

The two of them stared into opposite directions for a while.

"Do you still want to know how I ended up here?" Mark asked, throwing Jack even more off guard.

"Yeah, if you want to tell me."

"It's a long story."


	6. Chapter 6

"It was a cold, winter's night-"

"How cold!?" Jack asked with a noticeable voice crack, completely sucked into the story six words in.

Mark gave the other his signature "what the fuck is wrong with you" look. Jack's smile seemed to be permanently fixed onto his face.

"About 70 degrees. I mean it IS California."

Mark definitely preferred the more energized, chipper side of Jack despite his distaste for loud noises in general.

"Okay, okay. Continue on." Jack said with an exaggerated hand motion.

"You know, I'll tell you later."

Jack's genuine excitement that Mark had finally opened up a bit vanished, but he was more optimistic than ever. He had found a home and possibly a friend, two things he had forgotten the power of.

The two men stared off in different directions. Jack took a good look around the kitchen from his chair. It was connected to the living room where he slept. Over the couch was a stairway that lead up to another floor. The whole house was decorated in furniture that seemed to be at least a hundred years old. Shelves of old, well read books covered all the walls. Behind the bookshelves and old lamps, the tan, patterned wallpaper appeared to be peeling a bit. The color of the walls perfectly matched the worn keys on an old piano in the corner. Jack cracked a smile as he realized the television wasn't even plugged in, since there seemed to be no plug outlets in sight. His over-analyzation of the house was interrupted by a sigh from Mark.

"You know I'm not letting you get up from that chair until you learn how to use your knife."

"O-okay" Jack stuttered out, distracted by the bumps on the ceiling.

The lack of eye contact made the room feel extremely empty.

"I didn't come here alone," Mark said to the toaster his head was fixed too. Like the tv, it was not plugged in.

"...no?"

"Before everything went to hell here, I had a girlfriend."

"Oh." Jack didn't really know how to respond to that.

"Her name was...Amy. She was the most beautiful woman in the world."

"She was?" Jack said.

"Yep. She was brave and kind an-"

"Was she blonde?" Jack asked jokingly.

"Very," Mark replied with a chuckle. "We were dating for about a year before everything...erm...happened. We hid out in my neighborhood for a while before we realized we had to get moving. "

"So it was just you and her?"

"No, actually. I was also living with some friends, Ethan and Tyler. They...um...well it was dark one night, we were all running from something, all four of us...and...when I stopped, just Amy was with me. I never knew what happened to them." Mark said, looking down at the floor.

"That sucks." said Jack, feeling guilty for reminding Mark of the memory.

Some silence passed. Mark clutched the coffee much as he searched for the right words.

"So anyways, Amy was the perfect teammate. Yeah, she was deadly, but she did everything with such care and skill and dignity. She saved my ass more times than I could count." Marks sorrowful expression turned into a bittersweet smile as he reminisced back.

"One day, around November...well...you remember when you were bitten by a hellhound."

"Yeah."

"Tore her left arm clean off."

Jack cringed at the thought.

"She kept running, she ran and ran until she collapsed. I carried her around for a bit, but night was approaching quickly. She had gone unconscious from the blood loss. I was running out of time."

Mark looked down at his reflection in the bottom of the mug. It had only been 8 months since things started to go downhill, but he looked like he had aged at least 5 years since then. He had a mostly healed, but very visible scar on the side of face, from the side of his eye all the way down to his chin to serve as a souvenir from that night. He took a deep breath.

"Eventually, I came across a large, mysterious house in the woods. Thinking it was empty, I ran inside, tied up her arm with the sleeve of my shirt, and started to panic."

Mark looked directly into Jack's eyes. "Jack?" he said in a deadly serious tone.

Jack blinked a few times to indicate he was paying attention.

"Never do that, panicking just makes things worse."

Jack nodded. He had a tendency to panic quite a bit under pressure, which is pretty much 24/7 at this point.

"Well anyways, the house wasn't empty, of course. Enis was there. He promised that if I didn't drive a stake through his heart right that second, he would save Amy's life."

Jack perked up, awaiting the (now) happy ending to this story. At least he did until a few tears started streaming down Mark's face.

"He tried everything. Every magical potion, every spell, everything he knew. It was of no use. She was gone."  
At this point, Mark was practically sobbing. Jack was unsure of what to do. After waiting for Mark to pull himself together for a minute he chimed in.

"I'm...I'm so sorry. I know how it feels-"

"No, Jack," Mark said quietly. "You don't know how it feels to watch helplessly the last person on the planet who cares about you slowly and painfully dies in your arms."

At this point, the awkwardness of the silence outnumbered the amount of dust that filled the room.

"Um...so that knife. Let me see it."

...

"You know what they say…" Mark said with a smile.

"...what?"

"A sharp knife…" Mark sliced another piece of paper in four pieces with two arm movements. "Is a safe knife" Jack had seen this trick multiple times by now, but it never failed to amaze him. "You try with your own knife."

Jack uncomfortably held up his knife in his left hand and a new sheet of paper from the stack in his right. Mark gave him a funny look.

"What?"

"You're left-handed?"

"...no."

Mark glared at him without blinking until he swapped hands. He, once again, awkwardly tore a jagged line down the paper.

"Well, as you can see the problem is that your blade isn't sharp enough. It probably is sloped over to one side. Take your fingernail and run it along the blade."

"..but..what if?"

"You have ten fingers, you can loose one," Mark said. Jack was not reassured.

"Yeah, it's curved a bit."

"See, all your fingers intact. Now, what I'm going to want you to do is hold the knife at a 45-degree angle to the cup." Jack balanced the knife on top of the coffee mug.

"...No. You have to hold it to the non-polished side. Now swipe it in the same direction AWAY from you a few times on each side of the blade."

Jack quickly slide the knife five times on each of its sides. It made a strange squeaking noise as visible metal shavings flew off of it.

"Now try," Mark said, holding up the paper. Jack took a deep breath. He sliced through the paper in about the same time it would take to blink.

"Excellent. Now you have about a 2 percent chance of surviving another year." Mark said with a cynical smile.

"Lasted longer than you," Jack mumbled with a chuckle.

"Oh shut up!" Mark said, gently punching Jack's arm.


	7. Chapter 7

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Mark returned back to his spot in the window. Jack spent the rest of the day doing his best to stay hydrated and rested while he could. He was doubtful that he hand found a permanent place to stay, but another part of him was hopeful that this wasn't the case. He had a roof over his head, food, running water, and maybe even a family.

After about an hour of cleaning, sharpening, and reorganizing his supplies, he turned to Mark to ask what had been on his mind for an embarrassingly long amount of time.

"Hey...um...Mark?"

"What?"

"Do...do you guys have a shower here?"

"Yeah, the water isn't hot though. It's in the bathroom upstairs."

Jack didn't even answer before he started racing up the creaky stairs. Surely enough, the only things on the top of the stairs was a bathroom and a few old storage closets. He ran into the bathroom, turned on the water, and threw his clothes on the floor.

There weren't many words to describe how amazing the shower felt. The water running down to the drain was in shades of gray, brown, and green. By the time he dried off, put his clothes back on, and looked in the mirror, his skin seemed to be a completely different color. He felt so relaxed he wanted to take a nap, but the smell of more beans drew him back downstairs.

After dinner, Jack returned to his spot against the wall to catch up on some more rest. He decided to lay down on his side rather than sit against the wall. The previous morning he was woken up to pretty bad pain in his lower back. It was difficult to find any sort of comfortable sitting position on the hard floor, but he was used to it by then

After closing his eyes for a minute, he was snapped back to reality by a tap on the shoulder by Enis.

"Thought you would be a bit more comfortable with these." He said. He was carrying a clump of old blankets and pillows. Jack smiled and nodded his head. Enis threw the pile of blankets, which appeared to more closely resemble rugs you would find under a coffee table, on top of him. The amount of dust that flew out of the pile was enough to throw Jack into a sneezing fit, receiving a "bless you!" from Enis after each one.

"Excuse me!" Jack said while catching his breath. Enis gave Jack a strange look as if waiting for something. "Oh...um thanks!" Jack said, forgetting some basic human interaction skills after living so long without others around. Enis smiled and walked off.

Jack shook out the blankets. He put two on the floor to lay on, and three more on top of him. He fluffed up the pillow and lay his head on it. He hadn't slept on anything this comfortable in months. He stared up at the ceiling and thought about how just days ago he was crawling around the broken glass behind an abandoned store counter, starving and bleeding to death. He focused his mind on his arm, trying to think of what would've happened if he hadn't found Mark and Enis. He shuddered at the thought and shoved it to the back of his mind.

He looked over to Mark, who was in his normal spot in the window and back to Enis, who was writing some notes down in a notebook.

"What are you writing?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Some more steps to a new magic spell!"

"Like what?"

"I'm working on a happiness spell! It looks like the key is beans, blankets, and showers!"

Jack responded with a chuckle.

Jack questioned how much 'magic' was being used in this spell, but he didn't question it.

"Hey, um...thanks again. For everything."

Enis squealed with joy. "It worked! You are more than welcome, Jack!"

"Good night, Mark!" Jack called to the other side of the room.

"Night, green bean."

Jack closed his eyes and let himself melt into a deep sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Jack woke up disoriented back at home in Ireland. Immediately realizing something was...off, he did what he always did in that situation.

Jack glanced down at the palms of his hands. Unsure if the double vision was from his crusty eyes or something else, he gently pressed his thumb into palm. It passed clean through. Shit. Not this again.

Lucid dreaming always fascinated Jack. It helped him get through the constant nightmares that accompanied the few hours of sleep that he allowed himself it get. It had turned from a fun hobby to a survival technique, as he rarely woke up during the night anymore, giving him much more energy during the day. The only problem was that most of the time he was unable to control his dreams. He was only able to be self aware.

Without any recall of getting out of his bed, he was sitting in front of his green background on his swivel chair, his hands on his keyboard in the right position to play Happy Wheels.

Before he could press any buttons, Mark ran into the room and grabbed him by the shoulders. He was covered in brand new scars and was missing an eye. He screamed some nonsense at Jack. Jack pulled back and ran into the hallway. The hallway looked nothing like any house he could remember going to. The walls were covered in old childhood photos of Jack. He squinted his eyes and spun in a circle, a thing that he always did when he felt like he was losing lucidity.

He reopened his eyes, feeling a little nauseous. He was standing back in the woods. His arm was hanging on to his torso by a thread. They say that it's impossible to feel any sort of pain in a dream. This became very obvious to Jack to be false. Every ounce of pain from the bite and then some swept over him. By this point, Jack started to fear that he would die in his sleep. Maybe this was what hell was, trapped alone there for all eternity. He collapsed from the pain. Oh god, Mark and Enis are going to think he died a painless death in his sleep. The pain unfortunately wasn't enough to knock him out, but far more than enough to make him forgot that he was dreaming.

With his free hand, he reached into his duffle bag. He searched around, feeling a sea of coffee mugs attempt to trap his fingers, and pulled out his own small, dull knife.

He closed his eyes, held his breath, and began to press the tip of the knife into the bottom of his neck, hoping that somehow this would put an end to the pain. Before he could puncture the skin in any way he heard a voice in the sky call out his name. With each call, the woods seemed to crumble.

"Jack!" the world started spinning faster

"Jack!" everything is blurry.

"Jack!" everything went numb, his shoulders felt funny.

"Ja-" Jack's eyes snapped open. He was sitting in an upward position. Mark was sitting on his knees directly in front of him. holding him up by his shoulders. "...oh my god you're awake!" Mark said with a sigh of relief.

"What happened?!" Mark asked calmly, but with a sense of urgency.

"Um…" Jack said, half awake.

"You were screaming bloody murder in your sleep."

"Oh...I um...I…" Jack spat out, starting to tear up. "I...I…" Jack was bawling his eyes out in front of Mark. Mark, unsure how to respond, gently put his hand on Jack's shoulder.

"I-it's gonna be okay bud-" Mark was interrupted by Jack tightly wrapping his arms around him. Mark's first instinct was to pull away, he hated anyone touching him for any reason. For just this one time, he allowed it and just let Jack cry into his chest for a while.

"M-Mark?" Jack gasped out between sobs.

"What's up." Mark said, gently rubbing Jack's back.

"Thanks...just thanks...for everything." Jack whispered, pressing his forehead into Mark.

"You're welcome." Mark said firmly, but warmly.

"A-a-are you guys ever going to kick me out?" Jack asked. The question made Mark's stomach lurch a bit. Even though they seemed to be about the same age, Jack felt to unbelievably small in Mark's arms. Only now he was realizing just how dangerously thin Jack was under his baggy sweatshirt. He felt like Jack would snap in half if he hugged him to tightly.

"Are you gonna stop asking questions?" Mark said with an eye roll.

Jack smiled and buried his head more in Mark's shirt. Mark adjusted his position so he was sitting against the wall. Jack leaned onto Mark's shoulder and played with his own thumbs. He gained more control of his breathing and drifted into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
